What shapes an individual's behavior?
I study how the early environment contributes to behavioral variation, and how this behavioral variation then affects interactions between individuals, such as those that occur between males and females, parents and offspring, or predators and prey.
Using fishes as model species, I study how the behavior of individuals is affected by the stress their mothers experienced in the past and/or the quality of care they received from their fathers. I also study how the personalities of different individuals, be they males and females or predators and prey, can affect their interactions.
Who am I?
I am currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Sewanee: The University of the South. Before that I was a visiting postdoctoral researcher in the Behavioural Ecology Group at the University of Cambridge, UK (2013-2015) and a postdoctoral researcher in Alison Bell's lab at the University of Illinois (2009-2015). I completed my PhD with Joe Travis and my MSc with Don Levitan, both at Florida State University.
I was recently highlighted in a new faculty profile by the Society for the Study of Evolution. I currently also serve as an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Royal Society (Biological Sciences) and an Editor for Animal Behaviour.
Research interests
All of this research involves enthusiastic undergraduates!
Are you excited about doing science?
Do you want to get involved in research?
Do you like fish and watching behavior?
Come join the fun in the McGhee lab!
Maternal stress & effects on offspring
Parents can influence offspring traits, including behavior, beyond their genetic contribution. I study how maternal stress due to predation risk shapes offspring behavior and survival with predators. Can mothers 'prepare' their offspring for a potentially dangerous future environment?
Paternal care & effects on offspring
I study how the parental care offspring receive from their father shapes their behavior, patterns of gene expression, and survival. How do fathers adjust the quality of their care to the stress level of their mate? How do these adjustments affect offspring phenotype? How does paternal care interact with the effects of maternal stress?
Predator-Prey interactions
I study how predator-prey interactions are affected by the behavioral types of both predator and prey individuals, as well as the behavioral adjustments that predator and prey make in response to one another’s behavior during an encounter. Is the outcome of an interaction determined by how individuals respond to their opponent, or by the personality they bring to the interaction?
People
I have been very lucky to mentor a number of enthusiastic and hard working undergraduate students. Many of them have played crucial roles in data collection for large lab projects. Several of them have also completed exciting independent projects. Students often see things from a different perspective leading to some really fun experiments!
Grace Hines & Alayna Nicotera
2021 (summer internship)
2021 Project: Personality & risk-taking behavior in Rivulus.
Grace and Ally have worked hard this past spring repeatedly testing multiple individuals from 17 different genetic clones of the mangrove rivulus in risk-taking assays. They will each be presenting a poster at the Animal Behavior Meeting this august!
Grace was also involved in summer 2020 and 2021 watching tons of fish videos for various lab projects!
Angela Barbosa
2018-current
2021 Project: Is neophobia affected by conspecifics?
2019 Project: Transgenerational consequences of dominance interactions
2018 Project: Maternal predator-exposure and offspring behavior
Angela is an Impact Scholar (YES Prep) and is starting her senior year at Sewanee. She has been involved in the lab for over 3years, starting even before she officially was a student at Sewanee (via Research Bridge Program)! She and JLO were the "super team" the summer of 2019 - they kept the lab running and completed several awesome experiments! She continued this work watching lots of videos during her "remote" 2020 summer. Angela also helped collect loads of data on how maternal stress can affect offspring behavior in mosquitofish in 2018 before her first year (see publications).
Angela will be presenting a poster on her independent project on neophobia in mosquitofish at the Animal Behavior Meeting this august as a Turner Fellow!
JLO (Jonathan Lopez)
2019-current
2021 Project: How do early cues of danger affect behavior?
2019 Project: Transgenerational consequences of dominance interactions
JLO is a Chicago Scholar and is starting his senior year at Sewanee. He and Angela were the "super team" the summer 2019 - they kept the lab running and completed several awesome experiments! He and Angela successfully developed a great dominance assay! He continued this work watching lots of videos during his "remote" 2020 summer.
JLO will be presenting a poster on his independent project on how early cues of risk affect later behavior in mangrove rivulus at the Animal Behavior meeting this august as a Turner Fellow!
Kaitlyn Nunley
2019 (summer volunteer)
Project: Can Rivulus detect genetic relatedness of embryo alarm cues?
Kaitlyn was a pre-Med Music major, but was eager to "dive" into the fun world of fish behavior! At the end of summer 2019, she kept things running in the lab and completed an experiment examining whether rivulus react differently to alarm cues from related vs unrelated embryos. Her work was published in Behavioural Processes in 2024.
Anna Kate Foshee
2018 (summer internship)
Project: Maternal predator-exposure and offspring behavior
Anna Kate was an Integrative Biology major and loves all animals (and fancy office supplies). In the summer 2018, she trained Angela and helped collect loads of data on how maternal stress can affect offspring behavior in mosquitofish (see publications).
Niko Darby
2016-2017 (summer internships)
2017 Project: How do recent predator encounters affect learning?
2016 Project: How do recent stressful experiences affect exploration, social behavior, and risk-taking?
Niko is a scholar with The Posse Foundation and the founder of the Sewanee biology club, BOLT. He helped me get the new fish lab up and running, and he also conducted two fantastic research projects over his two summers in the lab. He presented these projects at Scholarship Sewanee (2017: poster, 2018: talk) and the first project has just been accepted in Behavioural Processes!
Niko was also the recipient of Department of Biology's prestigious Yeatman award for his leadership qualities and enthusiasm for biology.
Kailey Bissell
2017 (summer internship)
Project: Witnessing neighbors react to alarm cues alters risk perception in mosquitofish
Although her heart is in the marine world, Kailey completed a great research project on mosquitofish in the summer which ended up being her Honors Thesis. She tied for first place for her Thesis presentation at Scholarship Sewanee (spring 2018). She also helped me with extracting data from hours of video and doing an experiment on maternal stress during gestation (see publications).
Sally Feng
2012-2014
Project: How does maternal stress affect her offspring’s ability to apply previously learned knowledge to a new situation?
Sally was awarded Distinction upon graduation from the University of Illinois for her excellent independent research project. The manuscript associated with her project was published in Animal Behaviour and was highlighted by the Editor. She also played an important role in a variety of other projects and was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study coral reef conservation in the Philippines.
Danny Roche
2010-2012
Project: Maternal predator-exposure has life-long consequences for offspring learning in threespined stickleback.
Danny was awarded High Distinction upon graduation from the University of Illinois for his outstanding independent research project. The manuscript associated with his project was published in Biology Letters and was highlighted in Nature. He also played an important role in a variety of other projects.
Sagan Leasure
2012 (summer internship)
Project: Courtship plasticity in male threespined stickleback.
Sagan was a veterinary medicine student at the University of Illinois and worked in the Bell lab as part of the College of Veterinary Medicine Summer Research Training Program.
teaching
Behavioral Ecology
Bio 311
Focuses on the study of animal behavior from an ecological and evolutionary perspective. Topics include the development of behavior, predator-prey interactions, foraging strategies, cooperation, mating behavior, and parental care. Laboratory emphasizes methods used to study animal behavior, including hypothesis testing, experimental design, and statistical analysis. Course also includes discussions of the primary literature and an independent research project.
Genes & Behavior
Bio 322
Focuses on the complex link between genes and behavior. Topics include development of behavior and methods used to study the genetics of behavior (quantitative genetics, gene expression, genome wide association studies, etc...) in a variety of animals, including humans. Course also includes discussions of the primary literature and student ‘Myth-Buster’ projects.
Field Investigations in Biology
Bio 130
An introduction to the study of the natural world, with an emphasis on hands-on exploration of local ecosystems. This course fulfills the General Education experiential learning objective.
High School BRIDGE Program
A brief introductory animal behavior course with laboratory and research project components. Part of the Sewanee summer Bridge program for high school students of under-represented groups in the STEM fields.
